


Lucky Diamonds

by StarlightXNightmare



Series: Septic Egos [2]
Category: Video Blogging RPF, jacksepticeye
Genre: Abandonment, Attempted robbery, Backstory, Brief mentions of panic attacks, Bullying, Character Death, Curses, Familiars, Guilt, Homelessness, Humiliation, Magic, Memories, Mentions of House Fire, Mentions of past injury, Sickness, Talismans, mentions of starving, street performances
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-05
Updated: 2018-06-05
Packaged: 2019-05-18 10:24:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14850986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarlightXNightmare/pseuds/StarlightXNightmare
Summary: Marvin remembers a time where he wasn't as lucky as he is now. Thankfully he has his lucky Diamonds by his side.





	Lucky Diamonds

**Author's Note:**

> This took way too long. What was supposed to be a 3.5 page story turned into 12.7 pages. I don't really regret it though. I need more backstory on Marvin since there doesn't seem to be a lot of that anywhere else.

Marvin stared at the small ball of green fire burning in the palm of his hand, watching as the flames danced and swayed. He still found himself entranced by his powers even after all these years. It's amazing to know he could create something so beautiful; it's relieving to see he wasn't absolutely useless or that his magic was completely dangerous.

The very first time he'd used his powers was when he had been wanting solitude. The other kids had been picking on him for a couple of days, making fun of him for every little imaginable thing they could think of—his shyness, his accent, his stutter, and his longer hair were topics they mainly chose. He had just wanted to disappear; he simply wished he would be left alone. The next thing he knew, he was all alone—and on the roof of the school. He had only been eight or nine then.

He had tried his best to keep his newfound powers a secret but other little accidents here and there prevented him from doing so. Like that one time where he got too angry at a kid for blatantly lying to his face and accidentally set his pants on fire, taking the term 'liar liar pants on fire' to a whole new level. Or that other time where he levitated the recliner chair when the remote fell between the cushions and onto the floor. Can't forget the time he grew out his hair longer right after his mother had cut it once it got "too long".

These incidents were what tipped his parents off to his magic. At first, they weren't bothered by it too much (that he knew of). They mentioned something about getting back in touch with his mother's mother but it didn't happen in the next few weeks. Then he had accidentally set the house on fire while he was having a nightmare. That nearly killed everyone inside: his mother, father, and himself. Thankfully everyone survived—the only injuries had been burns and inhalation of smoke with Marvin suffering the most damage. His lower arms, hands, neck, and face suffered second and third degree burns that had required skin grafts all around and scarred over when it did heal.

After that incident, his parents fully understood the gravity of his powers. They pulled him out of school and called his mom's mother and arranged a meeting with her. He packed up what he needed and was sent to his grandma's place to live for an indefinite period of time. He knows they kicked him out because they were scared. They didn't love him anymore after that major screw up. They assured him it was an accident and that they know he couldn't control his magic. It didn't help ease the pain in his soul that he had nearly killed his parents.

He had never met his grandmother before all this, so he was scared about meeting her, let alone living with her. She turned out to be a lovely, eccentric lady who also happened to be a magician. She had two familiars with her: a raven with sleek black feathers named Clubs and a white cat with black paws named Spades, both of whom he got along with relatively well. She had been excited to meet her grandson and welcomed him into her home without hesitation. He settled in quickly and all his fears had vanished in a puff of smoke.

He ended up staying with his grandma for many years, the kind lady taking him on as an apprentice and making it her goal to teach him of magic and how to control his unruly powers. Among the things his tutor had taught him were spells, potions, and enchantments though the most important thing she had taught him was that magic was heavily connected to emotions. If he could control his emotions and keep them in check then he could control his magic much easier. 

Controlling his magic was extremely difficult—nearly impossible. It was like trying to wrangle a bull with a lasso with you seated upon its back while it bucked and thrashed around. He'd accidentally broken, thrown, tipped, and levitated many items of the house, started small fires, and teleported into many precarious spots. The violent behaviors of his magic was sporadic: sometimes they occurred several times a day while he could go months and even years without having them. His magic was guaranteed to almost always act up when his guard was down, becoming unusually violent when he suffered from panic attacks. It wasn't odd for him to be injured by his own magical aura when he was upset, especially when it curled around him and squeezed him within an inch of his life.

Through all this his grandmother had been doing some investigating and after his magical aura nearly killed him, his grandmother had gotten some answers. She told him he had been cursed sometime in his life by some powerful being. It was weird: he didn't recall ever being cursed. The curse's full effects weren't easily identifiable but it appeared to have made his magic impossible to keep steady control over it, no matter if he was emotionally stable or not. Having stored up, unused magic in his system only heightened the difficulty it took to control his magic. While every spell his grandma had tried couldn't break the curse on him, there were some things that did help minimize the damages and effects of the curse.

There was a certain potion that would essentially drug him and his magic when it was getting out of hand, neutralizing it enough to where he could get to a safe place before the effects wore off or that he could get a handle on his magic once again. If that one didn't work, there was another potion that would literally drain the current magic from his body to stop himself from hurting anyone or breaking anything—though magic withdrawal was nearly as painful as losing control of his magic. Something he could do was keep his magic levels low when he felt his control slipping from his grasp—use up as much magic as possible before he lost control completely. Meditating was also an option and a pretty good one too—who knew just clearing your mind could do such wonders?  Another option were layers and layers enchantments and runes to halt the process of gathering magic once it passed a certain level even though having stored up excess magic in his body that he was unable to use made him sick.

The one thing that seemed to help the most however was his talisman.

His grandma had given him several objects she had owned, hoping that one of them would end up being a talisman for him. Once he voiced that he didn't know what a talisman was, she explained that it was an object that was like a good luck charm—something that could help the user keep a better handle on their magic and help them keep their focus so they could channel their magic more effectively. The goal was to find his talisman and see if it could help him wrangle his magic.

The first couple items she had given him didn't work, but the last one happened to be his talisman. It was a porcelain cat mask that hid nearly his entire face, leaving only his mouth uncovered with the four suits of cards painted on the forehead. He thought it looked silly and was apprehensive to wear it at first until he finally caved at his grandma's insistence. There were no strings on the mask; there was absolutely nothing that signified that he could properly wear it though he pressed it up to his face anyway. He was shocked and slightly horrified when the mask clung to his face tightly without the help of his hands keeping it in place. After the initial weirdness of the mask, Marvin began to like it—it didn't feel like he was wearing a mask at all and it hid the burn scars that littered most his face. He kept it on most the time after that.

After that, his life fell into a routine. He'd practise his magic and learn new things under his grandma's watchful eye and rarely ever left the house. His parents didn't visit him while he lived with his grandma, not even on the holidays and he found himself caring less and less as time passed. Getting a feel for his magic and getting a good grip on it helped boost his outward confidence and his charm grew as he aged.

Then tragedy struck when he was seventeen.

His grandmother had fallen suddenly ill. It wasn't something magic could fix because it appeared that some kind of magic was the cause of her ailment. Her memories were fading with every passing day and—scarily enough—she bled from her eyes, mouth, and ears when she had seizures. Sometimes when she seemingly forgot about him, she'd attack him with a knife. She progressively got worse and worse as the months passed until she had to be moved into hospice care where he'd visit her every day, whether she remembered him or not. Oddly enough, sometimes her bright blue eyes were... _green_... or _black_.

She died around his nineteenth birthday.

Her will split up most her belongings with other family and friends that used magic; he had inherited her spellbook, journals, her talisman—a gold pendant with a set emerald in the center, and her two familiars Clubs and Spades.

His parents made it clear they didn't want him back in their lives, so with the things he had inherited, what little he could pack, and the clothes on his back, he headed out into the world. 

The next few years were a blur to him. With him not graduating school and having no high school diploma, getting a job was pretty much impossible. Instead of staying in one spot for long he traveled a lot, mainly on foot with Spades walking alongside him and Clubs perched on his shoulder. He slept in safe, secluded spots, often going hungry and being exposed to the elements. He performed magic tricks with Clubs and Spades assisting him on the sidewalk in areas that were often packed with people, earning money by getting tips from generous passerbys and earning himself the stage name of "Marvin the Magnificent". Sometimes he got enough money to get the two familiars and himself something to eat; sometimes the three had to scavenge for food in trash cans. On bad days, none of them ate.

Once the three had several bad days in a row, leading Marvin to breaking into a local supermarket in the middle of the night. Getting in had been simple enough—just a wave of his hand and a few fancy words was all that was needed for the lock to unlock. He wasn't taking much; they wouldn't even miss a few apples, a fish, and a pack of seeds. He'd never been caught in the few times he'd stole from supermarkets which was why turning and coming face-to-face with the city's beloved superhero, Jackieboy Man, scared the living daylights out of him. Enough so that he dropped everything and with a wave of his cloak, he disappeared into a nearby alley.

That wasn't the only time he ran into the hero. They frequently crossed paths, most being relatively harmless to both involved—it wasn't out of the ordinary for the hero to stumble across him when he performing a late-night show for what few people walked around after dark or for the magician to be resting in an alley when he saw a blur of red jump a gap between buildings right above him. A few encounters had been dangerous—the hero foiling his attempts at robbing a store for food multiple times and nearly got him caught by the police or when the hero had cornered the magician while he was ducking into an alley to rest when he thought he had gotten away from the hero clad in red, and Marvin had shot off a stream of fire to direct the hero's attention away from him.

The past few days had been cold with bone chilling rain falling from the dreary sky seeing as it was nearing the tail end of fall. After about four days of nothing but frigid rain, Marvin woke up and found that it was extremely difficult to move—his limbs felt like lead and his mind was foggy. He couldn't bring himself to get up and perform for an audience—not when he was so _cold_ and _hungry_. Just moving around the slightest bit made his whole body ache and cry in protest, so he stayed in the same alley. He told himself he'd get up and perform tomorrow when he wasn't feeling as terrible. 

He felt even worse the next day.

The rain had begun falling in a light drizzle the next morning, rousing him from his slumber. That day was when he realized he had gotten sick. He recalled vaguely a couple of days ago performing for a crowd of people where there were coughs and sneezes all around but couldn't confirm that that's where he picked up the virus—for all he knew, he could've just picked up a virus from the outdoors. He remained in the same alleyway, wrapped up in his cloak and curled up against the wall. When Clubs and Spades weren't out hunting for food, they were pressed up to his side, curled up underneath his cloak—sharing their body heat with him or siphoning what little he had left he wasn't sure, but all he knew was it felt _amazing_.

Being sick while being unable to have any access to warmth was torture. He was coughing and sneezing all day with achy joints, his nose just as clogged as his mind. He was increasingly aware of the hunger clawing at the insides of his stomach but couldn't bring himself to do anything about it. He was exhausted, his eyelids feeling as if they weighed a hundred pounds, and it was hard for his mind to stay focused on a subject for longer than ten or twenty seconds. He shut his eyes for a moment, readying himself for the wave of vertigo that'd wash over him when he tried to stand, only to find that when he opened them it was completely dark outside save for the faint glow of a street light outside the alleyway. It took him longer than he'd like to admit to realize he had fallen asleep. Though he was awake, everything seemed distant and faded, as if he were submerged underwater for too long. He was hazily aware of himself slipping in and out of consciousness every time he closed his eyes for too long, though he didn't do anything about it.

This continued for another day or so—he wasn't really sure—the lack of food, water, and warmth only fueling the sickness's rampage further.

He may not remember much from that specific night but all he could really recall was red and a quiet, comforting voice. All he knew was when his eyes were open for a moment, he was in the alley and the next time they were open, he was in an unfamiliar place. He didn't really register it at first, too content with the bundle of warmth he was in until his mind caught up with what his body was feeling.

His eyes snapped open to see he was in someone's house, on their couch and wrapped in several different blankets, Clubs and Spades lying on his chest, pressed up against one another. It took several moments for alarm to overtake the warmth he was experiencing—god, he hasn't been this warm since _summer_. He tried to sit up only to experience an extreme sense of vertigo wash over him, his stomach lurching as he gasped, slowly easing himself back down. He made it his goal to stay awake and find out whose house he was in but the warmth of the blankets was enough to keep him drowsy. He was lulled back to sleep within a few minutes of waking up.

The next time Marvin woke up was to the feeling of warm metal pressing against his lips. His eyebrows scrunched together at the unfamiliar sensation and his eyelids fluttered open to see a blur of red seated next to him. He must've made a small noise or his breathing shifted or shown some indication that he was awake because a hushed voice spoke gently.

"Open up. You're going to need this."

He frowned at the words but complied anyway, the taste of soup filling his mouth. He blinked several times, trying to get his eyes adjusted to the dim lighting so he could see who it was that had taken him into their home. It naturally came to him as a surprise to see that the superhero he'd been actively avoiding was spoon feeding him soup. 

At first he stared blankly at the hero in red, his mind struggling to catch up with his surroundings. Under normal circumstances, he'd bolt in the opposite direction and do his disappearing act to escape into another alley, but he clearly couldn't do that now—he was too weak to even attempt sitting up. He felt his face grow hot underneath his mask as the spoon tapped against his lips once again. He silently hated himself as he opened his mouth again.

It took him much longer than it should've for him to shake the illness that he had come down with—he was on bedrest for at least a solid week and his symptoms persisted for another two weeks. In that time Jackieboy Man had taken care of him, filling the uncomfortable silence with lighthearted chatter about useless inane small talk that annoyed the magician.

Everything about the hero annoyed Marvin—his eagerness to help, his stupid rules and his annoying authority, his generosity, his protectiveness, and especially his _invasive_ questions (though now that he thought about it, the questions weren't invasive, they were being asked because the hero was worried).

"What were you doing outside in November? It's nearly winter and it's been raining more than ever, and you were clearly sick. Why weren't you taking care of yourself properly?"

Once the man found out Marvin had nowhere to go, he readily offered to let the magician stay for as long as he needed to get back on his feet. It was completely humiliating and he hated it but Jackieboy Man was right: winter was coming, and even though winters here in Brighton stayed relatively mild, the cold would definitely be enough to hurt him and the familiars—he knew this from personal experience and it was predicted that this winter would be the worst in many years. He agreed with the hero, and before he knew it, he was sleeping in a house— _in a bed_ —for the first time in three years.

Within the first few days, the two fell into a routine. They ate breakfast together at 7 am before going their separate ways—Marvin going out to perform on populated sidewalks and in parks while Jackieboy slept well into the afternoon. They both skip lunch and Marvin typically heads back to the house around 6 to 7 pm. They eat dinner together. Afterwards Marvin practises his magic until he goes to sleep while Jackie holes himself in his room to do some hacking for an hour or two before he leaves the house for the rest of the night until about 4:30 am to patrol the city.

He wouldn't admit it but he soon found the hero to be less annoying than he first thought. He was only being annoyed because of how humiliating it was to receive help from someone who caught him stealing several times before—someone whom he attacked at one point to get away from. Luckily the hero gave him a wide berth on any of the really personal questions. Aside from that, it was... nice to have someone to talk to and live with again.

Marvin took this chance to summon his familiar now that he's back at tip-top performance. In any other circumstance he should've gotten his familiar when he was fourteen, however he was still being tutored in self control and his grandmother had been focusing on researching his curse. By the time they reached the familiar part of his studies, she had fallen ill—too ill to continue.

It had taken a few days to make preparations, especially since he had to buy supplies using his own money. The ritual also took an unnerving amount of blood—he actually had to cut open his lower arm vertically to get the required amount of blood. After a rather magic draining ceremony and a blinding flash of white light accompanied with a loud _pop_ , he was face-to-face with his familiar.

He had outright laughed when he got a rabbit as his familiar. His grandma told him only the cursed and unlucky received a rabbit as their familiar—it meant the magician was in dire need of a change in luck and the whole "lucky rabbit's foot" started for a reason. Before they discovered he had a curse, his grandma had been speculating he was going to get a cat or fox. 

The little bunny was downright adorable. She had pure white fur with small black bands encircling her wide black eyes, giving away that she was a Blanc de Hotot. Considering her small size, it was clear she wasn't full grown yet; she was rather small and was going to get several pounds bigger. The black bands around her eyes were a little more jagged than normal at the top, bottom, and sides of her eyes, coining her the name Diamonds to keep the tradition of naming family familiars after suits of cards.

After a few days of bonding with Diamonds, he decided it was time to begin incorporating her into his little performances (even if it was just brief appearances like when he pulled her out of his top hat). That first performance with Diamonds is what changed his luck.

That day he drew in quite the crowd at the park. He amazed children and adults alike with his fire tricks, sleight of hand movements, and illusions. When people came up with donations, he pulled off his top hat with a flourish and began to extend it to then before stopping, claiming that something was in his top hat before pulling Diamonds out. That got the kids excited and many more people were inclined to donate after that little trick. In the first performance of the day alone, he had made over thirty pounds in pocket change. By the end of the day, he had charmed over seventy-five pounds from bypassers.

After a week of traveling to different parts of the city and successful business, he had been approached by a man in a suit. The man introduced himself as Casper Mitchell, and he offered the magician a shot at fame. There was an opening at a venue that needed to be filled, and if Marvin could do well enough then he'd get a contract with the man and he'd get a chance to have his very own show. Marvin got one night to prepare for his very first show even if it was only (thirty minutes).

The day of Marvin's first show was full of practising new magic tricks and loosely memorizing a script he'd follow. He nearly used up all his magic practising and had to down a potion of raw magic to recharge fast enough for the show. He spent the whole day having his nerves eaten away by anxiety. He had suddenly become hyperaware of how he looked to everyone else; he ran a hand through his shoulder length green hair, taking note of his whiskery sideburns, moustache, and beard.

Once he was onstage, all his anxiety had ebbed away as he focused on his only task: amazing his audience—normal Marvin was gone; Marvin the Magnificent was in. He was going to do this and he was going to do this right. 

His bright, over enthusiastic mood made the audience warm up to him easily, the people watching with rapt attention as he made dramatic gestures. He cracked a few jokes to break the ice, throwing in some sarcasm here and there and asked the onlookers questions. His fire tricks had become much bigger than when he was on the streets, sparking wonder, and his illusions were much more grand, baffling the audience. He chose a volunteer from the audience to help him with a few card tricks that he had to use what limited future sight he had for. He wrapped up the show relatively quickly, taking off his hat while stating that donations would be widely appreciated before dumping Diamonds into one of his gloved hands nonchalantly, making the onlookers gasp and oh. Once his hat was passed around to everyone, Marvin took an exaggerated bow while his faithful audience clapped and whistled. With a grand flourish of his cape, Marvin teleported backstage, startling his captivated audience for the final time that night.

That night he signed a contract with Casper Mitchells.

He was sure of having all this sudden good luck was because of Diamonds but that didn't mean he didn't still have bad luck. In fact, Diamonds' appearance in his life only seemed to balance out his luck to a normal standard that he should've originally had without this stupid curse. That didn't mean anything to him however. To him, he was the luckiest person in the world.

**Author's Note:**

> I've always liked Marvin a lot. There's a lot I can do with his character. He's portrayed as a bad magician but I like to think he's just very unlucky—unlucky to the point of cursed.
> 
> *EDIT* I totally didn't forget the UK uses pounds and not euros. Nope.


End file.
